That is why Morton just might be the No. 3 guy in the leadership race -- if he can tap into enough of the grumpy old Reformers and get enough social conservatives, such as church groups, to join the Tories and vote. Being No. 3 is important -- the top three names from the first ballot on November 25 move on to the second ballot on December 2 (if nobody wins outright on the first ballot).

But I'm not surprised he oversold his argument. Part of Morton's leadership campaign shtick is to present Alberta as under threat from Ottawa and himself as the only one who will stand up against the federal government, even if a Calgary Conservative is prime minister.

Morton might lose votes because Stephen Harper is Prime Minister, but not many. First, barring some sudden inexplicable set of circumstances (the opposition rallying together to defeat the Conservatives, and then having every opposition party including the Greens suddenly turning up responsible for a series of brutal murders around the country, for example) when the votes come in for PC leader, Harper is only going to be the PM in a minority government, which every half-baked voter knows is a tenuous position which could easily fall. Secondly, policies enacted by Morton are unlikely to be in place to stop any illegal or unconstitutional or just plain undesirable Ottawa actions over the next 2-3 years, and probably not even 3-5 years. But over the next 5-15 years, any Ottawa action brought forth would come toe to toe with the policies and procedures and laws created by a Ted Morton government. Does Thompson really think that nobody in the (recently unacceptably expanded) Tory tent expects a Liberal (or Liberal-NDP coalition) government to come for the next two decades? I just don't see it.

In other liberal-biased Journal news, can clever readers spot the problem with this headline of a news article?

Tory bill would 'let pollution get worse'

Naturally they're just quoting somebody. What's the harm in that? Well, the context of the story is opposition to the Clean Air Act. It's really no better than this headline:

Except that the article linked above is an opinion piece (though a half-baked one) by Green Party bitch Elizabeth May, not something passing as actual news. Here are a few other headlines being used to talk about the proposed Act (which has not officially been released yet):